Smarter Decision Making

Discover the essential thinking tools you’ve been missing with The Great Mental Models series by Shane Parrish, New York Times bestselling author and the mind behind the acclaimed Farnam Street blog and “The Knowledge Project” podcast. This first book in the series is your guide to learning the crucial thinking tools nobody ever taught you. Time and time again, great thinkers such as Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett have credited their success to mental models–representations of how something works that can scale onto other fields. Mastering a small number of mental models enables you to rapidly grasp new information, identify patterns others miss, and avoid the common mistakes that hold people back. The Great Mental Models: Volume 1, General Thinking Concepts shows you how making a few tiny changes in the way you think can deliver big results. Drawing on examples from history, business, art, and science, this book details nine of the most versatile, all-purpose mental models you can use right away to improve your decision making and productivity. This book will teach you how to: Avoid blind spots when looking at problems. Find non-obvious solutions. Anticipate and achieve desired outcomes. Play to your strengths, avoid your weaknesses, … and more. The Great Mental Models series demystifies once elusive concepts and illuminates rich knowledge that traditional education overlooks. This series is the most comprehensive and accessible guide on using mental models to better understand our world, solve problems, and gain an advantage.

Today's world is complex and getting more so each day. Huge multinational corporations, international crisis and fast breaking events require most people to make decisions on a daily basis without the tools to understand the long term impact that today's decision might create. Because most people have never really been trained in how to make important complex decisions most people rely on experience, and 'gut reaction' which is okay for many decisions, but not okay for decision that will have meaningful impact on organizations and individual. Decision makers need to develop the art and science of strategic decision making. Here, Professor Thomas Martin explains the need for decision makers to modify their thinking about how they deal with acquiring and analyzing information in each of the decision-making process steps. This approach requiring thinking modification will lengthen the process, make it more complex, and to some more arduous, but the comprehensiveness of the new thinking approach should lead to improved and more effective decision making. In this book, Dr. Martin presents a thinking modification framework that asserts that in the decision-making process, there are three situational states — a current state, future state, and a transitional state that one must deliberate in finding a solution. For each of these situational states, Martin develops an identical five-step process to determine the best decision to make. The steps of this process include: • Change-Needing Situational Analysis • Challenge Framing & Causal Analysis • Generating Solution Ideas • Choosing a Solution Set • Implementation and Aftermath Planning This book will appeal to decision makers, leaders, and students of management who want a specific framework that details the process behind making strategic, well-informed decisions.

Where should I live? Is it time to get a new job? Which job candidate should I hire? What business strategy should I pursue? We spend the majority of our lives making decisions, both big and small. Yet, even though our success is largely determined by the choices that we make, very few of us are equipped with useful decision-making skills. Because of this, we often approach our choices tentatively, or even fearfully, and avoid giving them the time and thought required to put our best foot forward. In Smart Choices, John Hammond, Ralph Keeney, and Howard Raiffa--experts with over 100 years of experience resolving complex decision problems--offer a proven, straightforward, and flexible roadmap for making better and more impactful decisions, and offer the tools to achieve your goals in every aspect of your life. Their step-by-step, divide-and conquer approach will teach you how to: * Evaluate your plans * Break your potential decision into its key elements * Identify the key drivers that are most relevant to your goals * Apply systematic thinking * Use the right information to make the smartest choice Smart Choices doesn’t tell you what to decide; it tells you how. As you routinely use the process, you’ll become more confident in your ability to make decisions at work and at home. And, more importantly, by applying its time-tested methods, you’ll make better decisions going forward. Be proactive. Don’t wait until a decision is forced on you--or made for you. Seek out decisions that advance your long-term goals, values, and beliefs. Take charge of your life by making Smart Choices a lifetime habit.

Learn why bad decisions happen to good managers—and how to make better ones. If you read nothing else on decision making, read these 10 articles. We’ve combed through hundreds of articles in the Harvard Business Review archive and selected the most important ones to help you and your organization make better choices and avoid common traps. Leading experts such as Ram Charan, Michael Mankins, and Thomas Davenport provide the insights and advice you need to: Make bold decisions that challenge the status quo Support your decisions with diverse data Evaluate risks and benefits with equal rigor Check for faulty cause-and-effect reasoning Test your decisions with experiments Foster and address constructive criticism Defeat indecisiveness with clear accountability

Smart Economic Decision-Making in a Complex World is a fresh and reality-based perspective on decision-making with significant implications for analysis, self-understanding and policy. The book examines the conditions under which smart people generate outcomes that improve their place of work, their household and society. Within this work, the curious reader will find interesting open questions on many fascinating areas of current economic debate, including, the role of realistic assumptions robust model building, understanding how and when non-neoclassical behavior is best practice, why the assumption of smart decision-makers is best to understand and explain our economies and societies, and under what conditions individuals can make the best possible choices for themselves and society at large. Additional sections cover when and how efficiency is achieved, why inefficiencies can persist, when and how consumer welfare is maximized, and what benchmarks should be used to determine efficiency and rationality. Makes the case for ‘smart and rational’ decision-making as a context-dependent rational process that is framed by socio-cultural environment and conditioned by institutional capacities Explains how incorporation of the ‘smart’ decision-maker concept into economic thought improves our understanding of how, why and when people generate certain outcomes Explores how economic efficiency can be achieved, individual preferences realized, and social welfare maximized through the use of ‘smart and rational’ approaches

Train your brain for better decisions, problem solving, andinnovation Think Smarter: Critical Thinking to Improve Problem-Solvingand Decision-Making Skills is the comprehensive guide totraining your brain to do more for you. Written by a criticalthinking trainer and coach, the book presents a pragmatic set oftools to apply critical thinking techniques to everyday businessissues. Think Smarter is filled with real world examplesthat demonstrate how the tools work in action, in addition todozens of practice exercises applicable across industries andfunctions, Think Smarter is a versatile resource forindividuals, managers, students, and corporate trainingprograms. Thinking is the foundation of everything you do, but we relylargely on automatic thinking to process information, oftenresulting in misunderstandings and errors. Shifting over tocritical thinking means thinking purposefully using a framework andtoolset, enabling thought processes that lead to better decisions,faster problem solving, and creative innovation. ThinkSmarter provides clear, actionable steps toward improving yourcritical thinking skills, plus exercises that clarify complexconcepts by putting theory into practice. Features include: A comprehensive critical thinking framework Over twenty-five "tools" to help you think more critically Critical thinking implementation for functions andactivities Examples of the real-world use of each tool Learn what questions to ask, how to uncover the real problem tosolve, and mistakes to avoid. Recognize assumptions your can relyon versus those without merit, and train your brain to tick throughyour mental toolbox to arrive at more innovative solutions.Critical thinking is the top skill on the wish list in the businessworld, and sharpening your ability can have profound affectsthroughout all facets of life. Think Smarter: Critical Thinkingto Improve Problem-Solving and Decision-Making Skills providesa roadmap to more effective and productive thought.

Drawing insights from philosophy, psychology, literature, and theology, a longtime executive business coach explores how and why we make the decisions we do What is it that makes some of us better—or worse—than others at committing to a choice? What are the forces that hold us back, and how can we successfully overcome them? Every facet of our lives depends on the decisions we make. Yet, how often do we pause to reflect on our ability to make the best and smartest choices? The key is how we confront and refine the decision-making process. Here, Joseph Bikart explores the intricacies of decision making, challenging us to understand why we make the choices we do. He explores how the true power of decisions, especially the toughest among them, help us to face our fears and may in turn change how we think about ourselves. Breaking his study into four clear parts and short practical essays, Bikart presents a lively and compelling exploration of the process of decision making. He covers: • Indecision, Indecision: What makes us indecisive? What holds us back and why? • Where Art Thou?: How and where we get stuck and the importance of relaxing one's grip. • The Momentum of Decisiveness: Keeping our focus and proactivity. • The Deciding Mind: Making our smartest choices. Drawing from such different fields as philosophy, psychology, neurology, literature, art history and theology, The Art of Decision Making takes us on a journey from the depths of procrastination to the elation of decision making. Presenting a fresh perspective on what to do at the proverbial fork in the road, Bikart's unique philosophy is insightful, thought provoking, and potentially life-changing.

Praise for The Truth About Making Smart Decisions “The Truth About Making Smart Decisions offers a truly valuable and entertaining journey through the complex terrain of decision making. Robert Gunther combines a writer's gift of the pen with a keen understanding of human nature, drawing upon his own experiences, business anecdotes, and vignettes from other walks of life. His selection of traps, insights, and truths are edifying as well as amusing, and many readers will recognize themselves as he exposes our weaknesses, and occasional brilliance, as we carve the trajectory of our life one decision after the next.” Paul J. H. Schoemaker, Ph.D., coauthor of Decision Traps and Winning Decisions “Robert Gunther crystallizes years of expertise and insight in business writing into a book on probably life’s most important matter: decision making. How do you do it and how do you do it much better? He offers many tools to organize the mind and maximize your ability to be a leader and money maker.” Rick Rickertsen, Managing Partner of Pine Creek Partners and author of The Buyout Book and Sell Your Business Your Way “We make decision errors predictably, and Robert Gunther offers fifty ways of taking decisions more intelligently. The Truth About Making Smart Decisions is a concise and actionable guide for what to consider when facing critical choice points.” Michael Useem, Ph.D., Wharton Professor of Management and author of The Go Point: When It’s Time to Decide “If you think decision making is cut and dried, this book will make you think again. In The Truth About Making Smart Decisions, Robert Gunther offers challenging insights on how factors from sleep to intuition to emotions to mental models affect the quality of our decisions. He urges readers to take a broader view and raises issues that anyone should consider in making smarter decisions.” Yoram (Jerry) Wind, Ph.D., The Lauder Professor and Wharton Professor of Marketing, and coauthor of The Power of Impossible Thinking Everything you need to know to make smarter, better decisions—in business and in life! • The truth about learning from your mistakes and those of others • The truth about how sleep can help you make better decisions • The truth about the power of acting decisively This book brings together 50 powerful “truths” about making better decisions: real solutions for the tough challenges faced by every decision-maker, in business and in life. You'll discover how to systematically prepare to make better decisions...how to get the right information, without getting buried in useless data...how to minimize your risks, and then act decisively...how to handle your emotions...make better group decisions...profit from mistakes...and a whole lot more. This isn't "someone's opinion": it's a definitive, evidence-based guide to effective decision-making...a set of bedrock principles you can rely on no matter what kind of decisions you make!